


Some By Virtue Fall

by drneroisgod



Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: (like basically when raven is in her early twenties i guess), Angst, Gen, Timeline: after the glasshouse but before the series starts, but i think it's just angst, i would tag this as other things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drneroisgod/pseuds/drneroisgod
Summary: They are on the run. They have been running for many weeks now. And they're waiting for a call from home—a call that may never come.
Relationships: Diabolus Darkdoom & Natalya | Raven
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. i. tea and coffee

there is a barista in a coffee shop preparing two orders. one coffee, one tea. she doesn’t know it yet, but her customers have left already. 

one coffee, black. 

one tea, iced. 

her customers are gone—they have been going for many weeks already and they have a few more long weeks ahead of them. they are driving in a car that will break down in forty-six hours, but their voices are tense and angry because of the black SUVs hounding them down the road. she is younger, but she is driving, and her blue eyes anxiously flicker between the highway and the rear view mirror. he is older, and he has a decision to make. this decision will haunt him well after this car chase—they will lose their pursuers in about ten minutes with the help of an illegal left turn. his decision will haunt him tomorrow morning on the road. it will haunt him when she is dying and there is nothing he can do to stop it. it will haunt him when his wife tells him he is safe at home now. but he is not sure he will ever be safe again.

she does not know that he is making a decision, or that it gets harder with every mile they drive.

the barista in the coffee shop has finished making the tea and coffee for her customers. she doesn’t spot them among the regulars, and she snorts. 

“young people these days,” she says to no one in particular. “they don’t know the value of money.”

her customers are obedient and ignore her.

it is no loss to the barista, really. they’ve already paid. and though she can see that they are not in the room, that their car has evacuated the lot already, the barista will give them the benefit of the doubt.

she sets down the drinks. “black coffee for bishop! iced tea for rook!”

“you makin’ drinks for the chess club, cheryl?” a regular asks sardonically.

neither the barista nor the regular are aware that bishop and rook ordered these drinks in good faith. they did not know that they would be unable to pick up their orders, that they would be scrambling into a car and abusing their gas pedal for the better part of two hours until they felt safe to breathe again. they’ve been on the road some time now, so they might have guessed. deep down, they might have known that they were already on their way as they were parking.

it was a nice thought to have, though: that they are the kind of people who stop on their morning commutes to have a drink together, to sit, to talk. but they do not have much time to realize that they are on the road and they cannot afford nice thoughts. they do not have much time to make an illegal left turn, either. 

the barista’s customers have left already, and they do not realize that they will never stop. 


	2. ii. rainy day

he is burning a candle that he bought at a farmer’s market in spokane: peach rosemary. that was a month ago. they are still on the road.

“you can’t be serious,” says rook, her gaze locked on the streetlamp they can just barely see through the oily drizzle outside. this room’s previous occupants smoked. bishop runs his finger through a yellowing plastic ashtray and is immediately disgusted with himself, but there is nowhere to wipe the humid ashes but on the couch upholstery. he does. it might be an improvement.

“this place stinks,” he says.

“and if we’re seen?” 

“who would _possibly_ look for us here?” bishop cannot help but snap back. “and in the rain?”

rook gives bishop the ice-cold glower that has become his constant companion these past few weeks. he met her seven winters back. to his shame, he is still afraid of her. 

“i’ll take the first watch,” rook says, her voice clipped and conversation-ending.

“fine with me.”

their lives have been compressed to the things they can fit in two backpacks and a brown 1992 toyota camry, purchased for seven grand in a different bumfuck than the one where they are currently stranded. ammo and cash are low. they last washed their clothes two states ago. at least he still has his toothbrush.

bishop dresses himself for bed by candlelight in their bathroom. his reflection in the sooty mirror captures his gaze. it is the same face, almost. he is startled by the way the convulsing shadows hook the contours of an unsmiling face. it is as if he is trying to recognize someone laying at the bottom of a lake. he knows it is himself—he has been told this—but how would he know, really?

 _i wonder if i’m dead_ , he thinks.

he turns back to the room. the sienna in the walls has dismissed itself for the night: the candlelight only illuminates more darkness. bishop blows out his candle and rook joins the ranks of the shadows. the motel’s red neon refracts against one of her katanas, which lays exposed like a rib on the windowside table. it lights his way to the bed. it is his for the next six hours. when they leave tomorrow, the neon lights will still be lit. though the katanas will be packed in the car, he will still feel the neon and steel piercing his chest. he will wonder, again, if perhaps he died a long time ago and he will never find his way back again. 

they have only one ritual on the road.

“good night,” he whispers, as he has every night since they left. she is equally faithful.

“good night.”


	3. iii. the fair

there are people at the fair and they are having a good time. in the desiccated yellow grass, they are the kind of people who wear their hard-work boots, their designer tennis shoes, their comfortable flats, their handcrafted cowboy boots, their platform sandals for Sundays, their threadbare loafers, their baby shoes, their impractical flip-flops. there are people at the fair and their shoes are on their feet when they sell jam, weigh cabbages, grease pigs, drizzle batter into the spitting oil.

there are people, there are people, there are people.

“do you want a funnel cake?” asks rook, tossing down a greasy paper plate.

“sure,” says bishop. he brings a bite to his lips and finds something familiar in the crisp oil, something from home that is still unquenched. “it’s good.”

rook is tearing hers to pieces. “did you know,” she says carefully, “this fair began the same year i was born.”

“i didn’t,” bishop says. he can see she is upset. “i know. i’m sorry.” he is kinder with her when they stand in the sunlight. she’s still a kid, deep down. he shouldn’t be so hard.

but everything has become so hard.

the sun floods the fair like tears and bishop must squint to follow rook when they stand. she is uninterested in the baby with the strawberry print dress, she is uninterested in the young people holding hands as they walk. she is ready to drive. 

“what happened to your boot?” she asks.

“the seam tore a few weeks back,” he tells her. “i’ve been meaning to fix it.”

she gives him a long look. she knows he’s had time. “i saw a sporting goods store a mile back.”

“i don’t think that’s necessary.”

while waiting for her in the sporting goods parking lot, bishop sees a family just come from the fair. they are unlike bishop in every way. the father is short and hairy. his birkenstocks are a few years old. the mother is pregnant again and her cell phone is jammed between her shoulder and her ear while she wipes at her son’s sticky face. he is walking already. bishop picks at a scab on his elbow to distract himself from hating them.

“boots,” says rook, throwing the box into his lap.

bishop laces them as they drive. rook says nothing, but hands him a wad of cash. her economy of needs and wants is simple, he thinks, as he arranges their bank. she takes what she needs and she wants nothing. he hates that about her, and wishes they could have stayed in the sunlight for just an hour more.


	4. iv. birthday

someone is turning three today, and it hurts. someone is turning three and it is not safe to make a call, to send a message, to send a gift, or else this might be the last birthday they get. 

so bishop turns his mind to other things. 

“he should have called by now,” he says to rook, who is trimming her hair over the bathroom sink. it doesn’t look half bad.

“he’ll call when he’s ready for us,” she tells him calmly.

“it’s been weeks.”

“they didn’t make any promises before we left. we knew this could take a long time. our job is to stay alive, and so far we have.”

he would like to rip her head off for saying that. she is not missing anyone who is having a birthday today. she does not mind being alone. she doesn’t understand. she is too cold to care. and she does not even know the secret he knows, the secret he worries about.

“do you want to do the shopping?” rook means this as a kindness. a chance for him to get out. to talk to people. to distract from the urge to lay on the bed for hours as though he is moldering at the bottom of a lake.

“no.”

rook runs the comb through her hair and lets fall her twin blades. “okay, then i’ll go.”

he is relieved when she is gone, because he feels less pressure to act like he is not keeping a secret. he should tell her. he’s thought about this. but he is stuck.

this is not their plan, you see. they have other names, other lives. but there are men who have the power to ask and receive, no questions asked. that was how they got on the road in the first place: he was never a man to mix power plants and sabotage, but he did for the king. the king is the piece on the board who decides the game. will they win? will they lose?

it depends on if the rest of the pieces protect him well. 

but here’s the secret, here’s the thing they don’t know: they thought there wasn’t a queen. she is the most powerful piece on the board, and she is conspicuously absent. 

bishop should have minded his own business. he should not have sent his people to learn the things they learned. he should not have read the documents. he should not have put his hand into the hive. these are the moments between the bee sting and the pain.

this is the barb: bishop thinks the king is hiding the queen from the rest of the board. he doesn’t understand who the queen is, or her nature, but he knows she is there. she is ruthless and she is a danger to society.

bishop may not know much, but he knows that if there is a queen—and there is—then she must be stopped.

this is the pain: if he pursues the queen, then this is not the only birthday he’ll miss. it may take months or years before the pain hits. but when it does, he will be gone. and once something is gone, you cannot get it back.

“let’s go on a walk,” says rook when she returns. “the leaves on the trees are changing.”

bishop says something he thought he’d never say: “leave the phone.”

“the phone. the phone that will tell us we can go home?”

“i have to tell you something.”


	5. v. dreams

in his dream, he is in the forest. it is lush and green. a fox darts through the foliage and he sees birds flit from branch to branch, but there is no sound. he moves; a branch cracks. he has to get out of the woods. he has to go home. he is in a campsite and he takes nothing with him before he goes. he walks through the forest in the direction of home. he walks and walks and walks until he finds a fallen log so big he must climb over it. at the top, he looks down. his own body is encased in the rotting wood. he is not sleeping.

bishop wakes up panting.

“i’m sorry,” says rook, who has been watching. she has been more somber since he told her the secret. she has been careful to keep the phone wrapped in tin foil when they want to talk about it.

he sees the phone is wrapped in foil now.

“if you’re right about number one,” she tells him, “it’s going to change everything.”

“i know.”

“are you sure you want to do this? he hasn’t done anything yet.”

“that we know of,” bishop says, and he almost feels like himself again when he says that. he likes to have a plan. he likes that, the feeling of control. almost like he might someday manage to be himself again. 

“you could die.”

“that was always true,” bishops sighs, but he knows what she means. “he’s the most powerful man in the world.”

“if he was here,” she says, not using his name, but they both know who she means. “if he knew. he would say, if anyone could do it, it’s you. you’re one of the best the world has ever seen. so, if you decide to do this, then you will.”

bishop smiles humorlessly. “you think?”

“he trusts you,” rook says. “he respects you. and so, i think, he would have faith in you.”

he doesn’t know if that’s true, but it makes him feel better.

“number one is hiding something,” he says. “i have to find out what it is.”

so that’s it: the decision is made.

why, then, does he feel so bad?

in his dream, he is in a lifeboat on the ocean. there is nothing and no one: the sky is gray and empty of birds, and no shadows haunt the horizon. the ocean is calm. he is worried because he has no life jacket. in fact, the boat is empty. behind him, there is a splash. he turns around but the ocean is empty, too. when he turns back, there is a shadow in the boat. 

“diabolus,” it says menacingly. “we have so much to talk about.”


	6. vi. demon/angel

bishop wakes up upside down and he thinks, “oh no.”

he thinks, this is not good he thinks, they might catch up he thinks, we have to get out of here he thinks, ow he thinks, what the hell happened?

he looks over at rook. he cannot see her face but he sees the smear of red blood on her chin that disappears into the darkness of her hair and drips methodically onto the ceiling of the car. it hurts his head to look in her direction but he sees the red stain below her. it is oddly-shaped, like a malformed heart or, perhaps, a pair of wings.

in the distance there are sirens. 

he accepts the paramedics with defeat, and gives them the names that are on their counterfeit licenses before they are rushed to the hospital. he is outfitted with a white tarp and settled in a bed to wait for someone to take his picture with high-energy electromagnetic radiation. they already know his ribs are broken but they’d like the picture anyway.

they take rook away from him and though bishop asks where they are taking her they do not give him a satisfying response. 

“you got any family in the area?” a nurse asks. she does not mean it in a friendly way.

“no,” bishop tells her. “we were on a road trip.”

the nurse frowns. “a road trip in the snow?”

he is running out of ideas. they have been on the road for so long that stopping like this feels foreign, though the vending machine in the hallway sells the same small bags they have at the motels.

“please,” he asks. “is she alive?”

realistically, he knows that this was an accident. has rook been sleeping? he has not. they should have waited. they should have stayed. on the road their lifespans are measured in miles and he did not think she had only fifty left. part of him blames the chessboard. they are always being watched. at the same time, snow is a bipartisan killer and, he thinks, it is no one’s fault.

that is to say, it is no more his fault than usual.

he gets to see her again before nighttime. rook is pale but breathing and she doesn’t wake but the nurses believe she will. bishop looks at her. she looks undangerous when bundled in sterile sheets, but she is not. she is still a nightmare, a demon, a slitter of throats, a killer. he stays with her because that is the lie he loves most: that he is not alone.

he is an angel about to fall and, he realizes, he cannot put it off anymore. on the road they have been running but there is no point in hiding, really. there is a god that needs pushing out of heaven and to do it he cannot love any more lies. it’s time.

the nurses have a basket of his possessions and the phone is there. thank you, thank you, the phone is there.

he dials the number.

“it’s me,” he says. “we’re in fargo, north dakota. yes. no. yes. please come. there’s been an accident and i can’t leave her.”

she is asleep and, he thinks, she is closer to the end than she knows.


	7. vii. breakup

under the yellow hospital lights they look inhuman. rook stares at bishop with a festering anger in her eyes, an anger that might have scared him before. shadows cover half her face; in the light, he can see the pucker of her stitches on her hairline. 

“you  _ called _ him?” she demands. “i am going to be fine! you’ve blown our whole mission for nothing!”

“not for nothing,” bishop tells her. “we aren’t gaining anything by running anymore.”

“but you can’t just walk into a G.L.O.V.E. meeting again,” rook breathes, her voice so soft it could be mistaken for romance. “not if he knows you know. it’s suicide.”

“i still have a few things he wants. i have some time, at least, before it comes to a head.”

“bishop,” she says. “you could die.”

bishop wishes what he says wouldn’t scare her. “living like this? under his thumb? it’s death already. i have to do something, rook.”

she has been watching him on the road. she has been the witness to his days spent in bed and his shouts, his tears. she has been worried about him all along. and so she knows that when he says that, he is serious. 

“let me come with you,” she says. “knight will allow it. he will want to know, too.”

bishop’s smile is grim. “no. you have to go home.”

“don’t patronize me.”

“i’m not.”

they stare at each other like split geodes, her sharp edges a perfect match for his own. she would follow him unto death, if he asked it. he knows this as certainly as he knows that that this match has come to a draw and is only a matter of empty moves. both their lives are worth more than that. they have to start a new game.

“this isn’t the end,” he says. “this could take years. we’ll see each other again. i’ll need your help sooner or later.”

rook’s head falls back against her pillow heavily. she is still upset. “if you’re saying it’s not me, it’s you, then shut up. i know what happens next.”


	8. viii. soulmate

if he is a knight, then he is a knight in shining armor for he is untouchable. he charms the receptionist with a smile and a credit card; he makes the attending nurse blush with a compliment that is at once innocent and piercing. he collects them both as though this were always the plan, placid and even, and even in the parking lot he does not lose his gallant equilibrium.

“i’m glad you called me,” he says. “we were beginning to worry. i thought you should have been recalled weeks ago, but we had no way to trace you without number one.”

“you can thank rook for that,” bishop says. “she really knows how to disappear when she wants to.”

knight stares, perplexed, until he seems to remember. “oh. the code names. i forgot.”

“that’s what it’s like when someone else is in charge of the board,” bishop says ruefully. “they get to pick the players.”

“still, the chess theme is a little… on-the-nose, i guess you’d say.” knight glances with concern at rook, who has leaned against the car, tired. she may be his guardian angel, but it was not so long ago that he was her legal guardian, and his haste in this matter, bishop knows, was always for her. 

“we might as well have been racecar and thimble, for all it matters,” rook says.

“not the thimble,” knight chides. “i’m always the thimble.”

rook rolls her eyes and bishop thinks, this is the right decision. it is time to be moving again and he has put one thing right, at least, before hitting the road.

“are you sure you don’t want a ride back, diabolus?” asks knight, graciously. “you’re on our way.”

“no, but thank you,” bishop says. “i have another stop to make.”

rook studies him curiously but does not ask. she tosses him the keys and, without another word, gets in the back of knight’s car.

“be safe, old friend,” knight says, leaning over the roof of his car. “you know where to find us if you need us.”

bishop sits in the driver’s seat a long time. he will see his family soon. he’ll be in his own clothes again. but it won’t last. he thinks,  _ i could disappear, if i wanted. _ and he could. he turns the ignition and the car starts up. he won’t disappear. he can’t. he loves the game, and his next move is still waiting for him on the road. 


End file.
